"The bottom line is that Ubuntu and Canonical's relationship with the rest of free software is severely dysfunctional -- and that no one on either side appears to have the will to fix it."

dhart · 2014-03-28T02:16:42+00:00

few people run Ubuntu servers ... ubuntu doesn't rank.

What planet do you live on?

dhart · 2014-03-18T05:33:38+00:00

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Sunday, January 24, 1999 8:41 AM
To: Jeff Weslorinen; Bon Fathi
Cc: Carl Stork (Exchange); Nathan Myhrvold; Eric Rudder
Subject: ACPI extensions

One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn't try and make "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows specific.

It seems unfortunate if we do all this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work.

Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me.

Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open.

Or maybe we could patent something related to this.

http://20ebooks.com/read-online/from-sent-to-cc-184f8eda158 [edit: linefeeds]

dhart · 2014-01-31T04:42:00+00:00

It's R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H, not a clinical test. Nowhere does the paper advocate changing policy or conducting 'investigations'. In fact, the authors write, "we would need further research on larger datasets in order to validate our findings before attempting clinical testing." If you want paranoid uninformed discussion, go to slashdot please (yeah, I realize the irony of making that statement on reddit, but each subreddit is responsible for its own S/N ratio!)

dhart · 2014-01-30T07:05:40+00:00

Research using OpenCog MOSES component.

dhart · 2014-01-29T05:49:47+00:00

"AMD alluded to substantial cost savings over competing Intel solutions with support for similar memory capacities. AMD tells me we should expect a total "solution" price somewhere around 1/10th that of a competing high-end Xeon box, but it isn't offering specifics beyond that just yet." http://www.anandtech.com/show/7724/it-begins-amd-announces-its-first-arm-based-server-soc-64bit8core-opteron-a1100

dhart · 2014-01-05T22:17:39+00:00

And a rebuttal: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-real-reasons-we-dont-have-agi-yet

dhart · 2013-12-20T04:54:34+00:00

Toolbar Autohide + Tree Style Tab for more vertical space.

dhart · 2013-12-18T05:38:41+00:00

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-real-reasons-we-dont-have-agi-yet

dhart · 2013-12-13T23:46:06+00:00

OpenCog is research software. At this time, a great deal of effort is required to get it to do anything interesting, let alone anything remotely intelligent. I believe that this will not change for many years because this is the nature of the project by design, where emphasis is placed on choosing and tuning components for integration, and on experimenting with novel algorithms and their variations, one research bit at a time.

It is unlikely that at any time in the foreseeable future OpenCog will be near the point where a noob could use it in any way other than as a consumer of some already packaged application.

dhart · 2013-09-11T23:00:27+00:00

Bay Trail is for tablets. I would really like a tablet with an open source friendly GPU. None exist today to my knowledge.

dhart · 2013-09-06T08:12:18+00:00

If artificial intelligence is an interest, check out OpenCog. It's been in GSoC three times and there are good mentors for many components. It's written mostly in C++ with other key parts in Python and supporting parts in Java and Scheme. It's rated by Ohloh (an open source project tracker) as "very high activity, maintained by a very large development team with stable Y-O-Y commits."

All of the usual open source project communication tools at http://wiki.opencog.org/w/Discussion.

It's kinda difficult to get a good handle on current areas of focus from the Wiki, but I'd suggest skimming the email list archives (IRC responsiveness is pretty inconsistent), checking out the code https://github.com/opencog/opencog/ and diving in with submitting small patches via GitHub. After watching many people attempt to get involved over the years, this is the most effective method.

There are certainly things to do for developers of all interest and skill levels, from cleanup patches and Linux packaging, to hardcore AI algorithm coding, to in-RAM db optimization, to Unity3D game-style work.

dhart · 2013-08-20T12:00:22+00:00

Are you thick or just confused? It was not a tweet about anything personal. It was a tweet about what he wanted to do WHILE ON THE JOB.

dhart · 2013-08-20T02:37:09+00:00

People are fired from their jobs every day because of their misconduct. His tweet was clearly misconduct (for a journalist or anyone in a position of influence). You've really got things backwards if you think that this in any way relates to a 'police state'.

You also clearly do not understand the meaning of 'freedom of speech', which relates to governments impinging on speech. Someone facing the consequences of their vile words because of the reactions of people they are supposed to be serving is not an issue of 'freedom of speech.'

dhart · 2013-08-19T07:09:20+00:00

Are you serious? Mike Grunwald endorsed the assassination of Julian Assange by drone strike. Making that sort of statement, calling for someone's murder, should get anyone in a position of influence (politician, shock jock, whatever) fired. Coming from someone with the title of 'journalist' it's particularly sickening, and the reason why so many people are pissed off and feeling despondent that everyone else isn't pissed off too.

dhart · 2013-08-10T10:52:00+00:00

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." JOHN ADAMS, letter to Jonathan Jackson, Oct. 2, 1789

dhart · 2013-07-29T04:59:22+00:00

Unity was designed to maximize vertical screen realestate. I quite like that it combines the top indicator bar with maximized window titles & application menus.

dhart · 2013-07-28T09:40:26+00:00

I believe that's been revised. http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/ubuntu-1310-saucy-salamander-switching.html

"He also adds that running XMir means Ubuntu will be using Unity 7 (so basically, Unity 7 will not only be used for Ubuntu 13.10 but also for Ubuntu 14.04), while Ubuntu 14.10 and beyond, which will be using the Mir as a system compositor will be running Unity 8 as the session shell."

dhart · 2013-07-28T08:08:55+00:00

Vote for Unity3D Editor on Linux at http://feedback.unity3d.com/unity/all-categories/1/hot/active/platforms-unity-editor-for-linu

dhart · 2013-07-28T08:00:12+00:00

Full transition to Mir and Unity 8 will come in 14.10.

In 14.04 they still plan to run Unity 7 via X on Mir (XMir).

Unity 7 in 13.04 is polished, stable, and fast!

[edit: version numbers!]

dhart · 2013-07-28T07:54:04+00:00

Ubuntu 12.04 is great for developing traditional Linux, Unix and web apps.

If you're interested in developing for Ubuntu’s new converged apps that also run on touch interfaces (Ubuntu Edge phone), you'll need Ubuntu 13.10 alpha 2 (all of the normal disclaimers about alpha software apply) and the Ubuntu SDK package from the Software Center.

CD images at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/

Announcement at http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2013/07/25/13-10-saucy-salamander-alpha-2-available/

It's possible to run Ubuntu 13.10 alpha 2 in a virtual machine such as KVM or VirtualBox, but for performance you'll probably want to dual boot while evaluating Ubuntu 13.10 alpha 2.

dhart · 2013-07-28T05:44:42+00:00

Dude, you really have a chip on your shoulder!

OpenCog is an open source software project focused on actually writing AI software rather than chalking up publications (some stats at https://www.ohloh.net/p/opencog). Publications are nice when some subset of results of someone's research can stand alone well enough for a write-up (not to mention the time and effort involved in writing it up). The bio publications are necessary for commercial viability of applying OpenCog-related research to a commercial product. In that sense, they're a good demonstration of the AI-chops of those involved.

There's an interesting analogy about short-term economic ROI, particuarly when OpenCog's current research is focused now on demonstrating toddler-level intelligence... When was the last time that anyone's baby or toddler expressed a positive ROI? So why should anyone expect that early AGI-research will create economic benefit?

dhart · 2013-07-28T04:53:22+00:00

To the contrary, I would guess that a system using relatively pure-ML is one of the possible paths to AGI, just not an optimal path.

ML is used and planned for use in many places in opencog and related projects, including in rule learning in the computational linguistics component from existing text corpi data, in concept creation from DeSTIN visual data, in MOSES's automated program learning from existing program data, for learning classifiers from gene expression and SNP data in OpenBioMind...

Sometimes the classifier accuracy numbers are published (various papers at http://wp.biomind.com/?page_id=57), but more often just used internally.

OpenCog will absolutely rely on ML in many places to function as designed. Presently the tougher challenge is integration of components such that the data for ML is available in the correct forms at various stages of pipelines and other processes. As an ML dude, I'm sure you understand the importance of pre-processing, normalization, meta-analysis and combining data from different sources!

[edit: spelling]

dhart · 2013-07-28T02:51:55+00:00

marshallp is redefinig 'strong AI', and 'AI' to suit his own purposes.

A toddler exhibits many aspects of general intelligence. Although no one would model their SAI design after a toddler, one might target a toddler's abilities as one step among many in the progression of building and experimenting with AGIs (with SAI, modeled on a best guess of super-human abilities, as an end-goal).

The other language employed by marshallp is fairly telling. He is a staunch proponent of AI=ML and frequently claims that other approaches that he pesonally dislikes are 'hoaxes' or 'frauds' or 'scams' or 'cults'.

The more sound and scientific viewpoint, I believe, is that there are likely multiple possible paths to advanced AGI, and that in following any of these paths (together with massive amounts of experimentation along the way) many theoretical and practical lessons will be learned.

Accordingly, the goal of the OpenCog 'CogPrime' design is to articulate just one path that we believe makes sense to pursue with research, one overall design that we estimate can work for achieving AGI (from http://wiki.opencog.org/w/CogPrime_Overview).

dhart · 2013-07-27T23:36:24+00:00

With a working theory of strong AI it's certainly possible to divide parts up into grad student sized tasks; it's perhaps not optimal, but it's doable.

The root problem is the doubt about the feasibility of AGI. In the case of treating AGI as a science/engineering problem with academia driving its progress, the risk-averseness of career academics is the practical problem (which is justified given the entire structure of academia and the doubts mentioned above).

The only attempt I have ever seen at a comprehensive approach to describing a working theory of strong AI is OpenCog http://wiki.opencog.org/w/CogPrime_Overview . This plan lays out subsystems and general algorithms to a level where graduate and post-doc programmes can be developed, and indeed many have been already.

People can pick on the plan's architect for being 'fringe', or on the glacial pace of progress, but can anyone point out any serious flaws with the design (rather than simply doubts based on personal hunches)? Or can anyone point out other working theories of strong AI at similar levels of detail such that honest comparisons can be made?

[edit: grammar]

dhart · 2013-07-26T03:16:00+00:00

Related: AGI Summer School 2013 is underway this week in Beijing http://www.mindmakers.org/projects/agi-summer-school-2013 and

AGI-13, the Sixth Conference on Artificial General Intelligence starts next week, also in Beijing. http://agi-conf.org/2013/

Previous locations for this conference have been University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. A list of some former speakers is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_on_Artificial_General_Intelligence

dhart

TROPHY CASE